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Age: 2 years and up
Area of Development: Fine motor skills
To encourage your child to hold their writing utensils properly (with their thumb and one or two fingers as opposed to wrapping all of their fingers around it also known as fisting) break their crayons into small pieces. The occupational therapist at our school swears by this and I've been using it with some of the kids in my class who still struggle with this. I only offer them broken crayons (sounds mean, I know) or small pencils (think mini golf course size). With a small writing utensil there is little room for your child to fist it. Another thing you can try is to have them write on an elevated surface such as an easel or just tape the paper to the wall (or, you know, let them color on the walls).
Did you already know this? Did you find this tip helpful? Do you have a tip you'd like to share? Leave it in the comments or email me at mccathy at comcast dot net.
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5 comments:
We were literally trying to teach the boy wonder how to properly hold a crayon (fatter) yesterday.
A retired principal in our district had a theory that pencil grips with overlapping thumbs was an indication of a learning disability, she had her teachers keep an eye out for it and there was a decent correlation btw the overlapping thumb and the LD qualifying students. (Undocumented unfortunately. Just anectdotal evidence.)
Interestingly, my mom gives LOTS of standardized tests - highest incidence of overlapping thumb? GED. lowest incidence of overlapping thumb? LSAT and MCAT.
(not saying LD students aren't smart or anything, just that the GED population are frequently the ones who the education system didn't fit for one reason or another.)
Sorry, I just hijacked the comments.
WOW! This is great! I didn't know this, and love the tip!
That's a great tip, thanks! Now I just have to remember it for another year plus before retrieving it from the recesses of my mind to use with the lil' one.
Good tip - never heard this one!
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